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Legislative Assembly for the ACT: 1997 Week 6 Hansard (19 June) . . Page.. 1871 ..

MR STEFANIAK (continuing):

It is something that the department is closely monitoring. As I have indicated a few times in this house before, if any individual school does have a problem, they should let me or the department know. There are all those mechanisms there to help them. Mr Speaker, I commend the paper to the Assembly, and I thank members for their comments.

Question resolved in the affirmative.

Motion (by Mr Stefaniak) proposed:

That the Assembly do now adjourn.

MS TUCKER (5.39): I wish to speak about a very important issue - uranium mining in Australia.

Ms McRae: Good God!

MS TUCKER: The Federal Government is proposing several new uranium mines across Australia. Ms McRae is not interested. That is fine. I will get this on the record and I will say it in every adjournment debate that I can until it is absolutely useless, because right now we are having this looked at by the Federal Government and I think it is probably the most scandalous and most inappropriate thing that is happening in Australia right now; that is, this Federal Government's approach to uranium mining. Yesterday, Mr Moore said that he wondered what things done by our generation now future generations would regret. I can tell you: This will be the thing that we will be condemned for.

Right now, the EIS for the Jabiluka mine has been lodged with the Government, and Senator Robert Hill has 42 days in which to respond. The EIS should never have happened, because it is a ridiculous proposal. Jabiluka lies within the Kakadu National Park, a World Heritage area, 20 kilometres north of the existing Ranger mine. Uranium ore extracted at Jabiluka would be processed at the ageing Ranger uranium mine, which has a history of minor and major accidents. There is no way that this uranium mine cannot impact severely on the World Heritage values of Kakadu.

The mine would generate significant quantities of contaminated water that would need to be discarded, adding to the already critical water management problems that threaten Kakadu's precious wetlands. It would also pose a radiological risk to workers. An increase in lung cancer from uranium mines has been reported in many studies.

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